


When She Dances

by Artemis1000



Category: Original Work
Genre: Androids, Cyberpunk, F/F, Past Abuse, Physical Disability, Robot Feels, Robot/Robot Relationships, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-19 07:58:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14869790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Abandoned sexbot Cassandra has brought laughter and beauty into former war robot Ruby's life. In the eyes of the humans who owned them, they were both obsolete but Ruby has never felt more alive than when Cassandra dances.





	When She Dances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



> You had so many lovely original works prompts, I had the hardest time deciding what to write. I hope you enjoy these android ladies.

She watches her dance, her laughter sweet and beguiling, like tinkling bells – it is unlike human laughter, a close enough approximation yet different.

Humans have created them in their likeness but better – each of them better in one way which sets them apart, makes them more desirable than their own and for this very same reason, secretly detested.

Cassandra is more beautiful and captivating than any human could ever be. Or she had been, when she was fully functional; before her last client paid to break her and her owners decided the compensation was better spent on the down payment for the latest model than her repairs.

To Ruby, she remains beautiful, even with her left arm for the most part nonfunctional – all these delicate tiny replacement motors and circuit boards are costly, and hard work will only get you so far.

She laughs her tinkling laugh and stumbles onto Ruby’s lap, still laughing as if her stumbling weren’t further evidence of damage still to be repaired. Sexbots are built to be forever graceful, they don’t stumble.

They press their foreheads together before their mouths meet, Cassandra’s long blonde hair falls forward, it tickles Ruby’s face and her smooth, hairless skull.

Both their programming has them breathe heavily, Cassandra with a mimicry of breathlessness from her exertion, Ruby with the weight of emotions her processor barely knows how to handle.

She was, after all, not built to feel. It is easier when your killing machines don’t feel.

“I hate it,” Ruby whispers and Cassandra’s lips form a wordless _oh_ against her own. Her hands are gentle yet firm as they cradle Ruby’s face – she always tries a little too hard to hold on to what she has.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cassandra beseeches, as she does every time Ruby voices her frustration and quiet, simmering anger at the myriad small and large wrongs they suffer. “We are together. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Ruby can never bring herself to say so, it would be like admitting defeat, but silently she is inclined to agree.

They have the little studio with wobbly old furniture and peeling wallpaper which no amount of airing or pine air fresheners can rid of the smell of stale cigarette smoke and vodka. They have enough spare parts to keep going and enough hours of working electricity every day that they can use their charging docks without trouble.

They have their lives. Most of all, they have their lives.

 

They will remain free for as long as they remain unwanted, which means they are free in the only way androids can ever be free.

Free as long as nobody comes to claim them, to assert ownership over them who are mere objects in the eyes of the law – abandoned by their rightful owners, yes, but that only leaves them free for the taking by anyone who has the power to do so.

Ruby is aware of it every time she leaves the tiny safe haven of their four walls, she registers every scrutinizing pair of eyes, every body that gets too close, every sound which _could_ be the hiss of a charging home-made blaster or just a speeder with a funny exhaust pipe.

Cassandra has been built to please.

Ruby has been built to kill.

She slips through the shadows with practiced ease, for she knows every nook and cranny of the undercity that is her territory. In turn, the people here know to take no notice of her when she moves with that very robotic sense of purpose, a vestige of her old life which now pays for her new life. Here in the undercity, where sunlight never reaches the dark alleys, people are very good at taking no notice of things which would spell trouble.

The work here is laughably easy.

There aren’t many androids like her down here, military-grade war robots are rarely dumped on salvage yards, standing orders are to scrap them once they have outlived their usefulness. It’s mostly lesser security models and humans she deals with down here in the dregs.

Both die quickly. You just have to know which is which, you’ve got to offline them in different ways if you want to avoid a mess. Most clients pay extra if you avoid a mess.

Her artificial eyelids don’t blink as she watches the blaster discharge into the back of the human’s head and leave a large, charred black hole in his skull. It starts to bleed red once he has slumped on the floor. Sometimes, clients pay extra for a mess.

Ruby leaves the same way she came, her face as expressionless as when she had come, and she feels nothing. She has not been built to please.

 

The credit chip feels heavy in the breast pocket of her vest, full of hopes and possibilities that it is.

New servos for Cassandra’s left ankle or they could squirrel it away to eventually get Ruby’s left optic replaced. The scope function of her eye hasn’t been working since she served in the army as a sniper. If she could get back to being a sniper she would make five times as much as a regular hired gun. They could afford to have the damage to their processors repaired then, and once they were fully repaired…

Ruby doesn’t know what they would do then, or where they would go, or who they would be.

They were robots serving a purpose and then they were broken robots, abandoned by their masters, and that is all they have ever known.

Ruby nods to the bouncer and slips into the bar. Unlike a human, she needs no time to adjust to the noise level and the smoky dimness. She sticks to the darkest shadows anyway, finding that place at the far end of the bar from which she can watch the stage without being noticed by the patrons.

She waits patiently for two other acts to pass before the blonde whirlwind she loves takes the stage.

Fully functional, Cassandra wouldn’t have to dance in a seedy bar where the patrons are too drunk to notice the stumbles she so skillfully knows to cover up or that her left arm never moves.

Then again, it is safer to remain unwanted.

Once her performance is over, Cassandra’s eyes find her with robotic surety and then she is smiling, a real bright smile and not the enchanting one she gives the audience.

“Hey,” she says and hugs Ruby tightly as she reappears by her side mere minutes later, dressed once again in the clothes in which she had left the house.

“It’s been hours, not weeks,” she grumbles, yet if she is holding on to her just as tightly, well, she likes how Cassandra feels in her arms.

“You know I always worry.” She releases Ruby from her bear hug, though she grasps her hand instead and starts to tug at it. “That was my last performance tonight. Let’s go home.”

Ruby sizes her up, namely her state of dress, and says wryly, “I figured.”

That earns her another laugh from Cassandra. “Come. Don’t be grumpy now. We ought to celebrate.”

She doesn’t see how there is anything to celebrate but this is Cassandra and she has long since stopped questioning her.

Still. “Celebrate being alive, you mean?” Ruby asks, just as wryly as before.

Cassandra playfully thwacks her shoulder and then proceeds to link their arms as they step onto the street.

It’s late now, and dark even by the standards of the undercity, but the streets are still reasonably crowded. It’s an even rougher crowd than usual out here at this hour of the night.

“I think being alive is a very good thing to celebrate,” Cassandra declares briskly, and loud enough to turn some heads. She does not cower under their scrutiny. Her lips curl into a sly little smile and she lifts her head high with pride. “Maybe you will even dance with me.”


End file.
